things; to which nobody made any answer, they going there not out of love
or esteem of them, but to eat his victuals, knowing him to be a niggardly
fellow; and with this he is jeered now all over the country. This day just
before dinner comes Captain Story, of Cambridge, to me to the office,
about a bill for prest money,

[Money paid to men who enlist into the public service; press money.
So called because those who receive it are to be prest or ready when
called on ("Encyclopaedic Dictionary ").]

for men sent out of the country and the countries about him to the fleete
the last year; but, Lord! to see the natures of men; how this man, hearing
of my name, did ask me of my country, and told me of my cozen Roger, that
he was not so wise a man as his father; for that he do not agree in
Parliament with his fellow burgesses and knights of the shire, whereas I
know very well the reason; for he is not so high a flyer as Mr. Chichley
and others, but loves the King better than any of them, and to better
purpose. But yet, he says that he is a very honest gentleman, and thence
runs into a hundred stories of his own services to the King, and how he at
this day brings in the taxes before anybody here thinks they are
collected: discourse very absurd to entertain a stranger with. He being
gone, and I glad of it, I home then to dinner. After dinner with my wife
by coach abroad, andset Mr. Hunt down at the Temple and her at her
brother's, and I to White Hall to meet [Sir] W. Coventry, but found him
not, but met Mr. Cooling, who tells me of my Lord Duke of Buckingham's
being sent for last night, by a Serjeant at Armes, to the Tower, for
treasonable practices, and that the King is infinitely angry with him, and
declared him no longer one of his Council. I know not the reason of it,
or occasion. To Westminster Hall, and there paid what I owed for books,
and so by coach, took up my wife to the Exchange, and there bought things